


Erasure

by goddessofcruelty



Series: Under Pressure [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Mindwiping, Nick Fury is an asshole, References to Suicide, References to self-harm, mental manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofcruelty/pseuds/goddessofcruelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“God fucking dammit Rogers if you don't get your ass over here and look at this, I will feed you your own eyeballs.” That's enough to get him out of his seat. He peers over her shoulder and she starts a video clip. Steve watches. Natasha watches him.</p><p>“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he says under his breath. “Again.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erasure

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Secret Marriage, Clint/Coulson  
> Prompt: I just wonder where Clint is this whole time

“Steve.”

He doesn't glance up from the files he's poring over.

“ _Steve_.”

“Just a second, Tasha.”

“God fucking dammit Rogers if you don't get your ass over here and look at this, I will feed you your own eyeballs.”

That's enough to get him out of his seat. He peers over her shoulder and she starts a video clip. Steve watches. Natasha watches him.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he says under his breath. “Again.”

They're still watching it over and over when Sam gets home, arms full of groceries. The house is absolutely silent when he walks through the door, and he immediately drops the bags, pulls his gun and steps into the living room with it drawn.

Seeing the two of them that intent on something only make his hackles raise more.

“Cap?”

Steve flicks his eyes up and they're haunted. “Sam. Coulson's alive.”

Sam has heard the story of the epic sacrifice. “Alive?”

As if the verbal confirmation was all she needed, Natasha starts swearing in a creative mix of languages and shows no sign of stopping.

“SHIELD video dated the day before Tasha dumped the files.”

They've been slowly poring through the massive amount of information that Black Widow has sent out to the internet.

“The Playground.”

“Location?”

Natasha hands Rogers a piece of paper. He looks at Sam, opens his mouth, shuts it when Falcon pokes a finger in his chest.

“Don't even say it.”

-

“Uh, Director?”

“Koenig.”

“Three visitors just landed on our front lawn.”

“Visitors?”

“Technically, two mutates and a regular guy with an apparent bird fetish.”

_Widow, Cap and Hawk._

Coulson breathes a sigh of relief. “Confirmed ID?”

“I would have shot them otherwise, sir.”

“Naturally.”

Coulson goes to greet them. The hangar opens and Natasha comes vaulting in, aiming a vicious slap at the Director's face. They're both surprised when he catches her wrist. Neither shows it.

“Fury didn't tell you.” It's obvious by the look on Cap's face, that _disapproval_ that made you want to make it right as fast as possible.

“My apologies. I was unaware that he hadn't briefed you.”

Natasha jerks her arm back, still swearing, but this time only in Russian and English. He thinks that means she's decided he can live.

“We saw him less than a week ago, sir, and he didn't say a thing.” Cap steps aside and turns towards their companion.

 _Not Hawkeye._ He smooths out the odd disappointment he feels.

Coulson steps forward and extends his hand. “Sam Wilson, pleasure to meet you. I'm a big admirer of the work you do with the vets.”

The bird on Sam's shoulder makes a noise as the man shakes Coulson's hand.

“Heard a lot about you, Agent. Hear you're supposed to be dead.”

“Actually, it's Director now.” He gives Wilson that bland Coulson smile. “Looks like the rumors of my death-”

“Really, Coulson?”

He turns to May. “How many times am I going to be able to use that line?”

“Agent May.”

She turns to face Natasha.

“Agent Romanov.”

There's this weird staredown between them, and the tension in the room is palpable.

“Sigma?” May tilts her head ever so slightly.

Romanov nods once. She follows Melinda May through the door, pausing only to flick a knife so that it lands, quivering, directly between Coulson's feet.

He looks down at it, faintly amused.

“What just happened?” Sam is staring at the door that has closed behind Natasha.

Coulson reaches down, picks up the knife and tucks it into his inside pocket. “I'm fairly certain you really don't want to know.”

He turns to Steve who still looks like a thundercloud.

“Shall we debrief in my office?”

Captain America glowers at him for a moment and then nods once.

It's not much, but Phil will take it.

-

“And then he vanished.”

Steve frowns and leans back. “That's a heck of a task you got before you.”

Coulson nods tiredly. “I'd appreciate your input.”

“I'll do all I can to help.”

Coulson steeples his fingers. “I'll have to talk to Natasha at some point. Her skills will be useful in sorting through the data.”

 Steve nods and then leans back. “She did find you.”

“After her and May are done with what I'm going to assume is sparring, I'll see if she's calmed down enough to have a conversation.”

“Wouldn't hurt to have Barton talk to her before that, sir.”

Coulson furrows a brow. “He still on the plane?”

Steve is frowning again. “Sir? He's been officially assigned to you since New York. It was the first file Tasha looked for.”

“Captain Rogers, I haven't seen Clint Barton since before I died.”

-

Agents Romanov and May are curled up together, legs intertwined, Natasha's head on Melinda's shoulder, passing back and forth a bottle of Omega wine.

“I can't believe Fury didn't tell you.”

“Would have ruined a perfectly good cover story. _I_ can't believe Clint didn't tell me.”

“How would _he_ find out?”

Natasha goes very still.

“M'inda. Tell me Clint's here with you.”

May pulls back slightly, tilting her head to look at the younger woman. “Tash, he's _never_ been with us. I haven't seen him since you guys got back from Budapest.”

The wine bottle is hitting the wall before Natasha even realizes that she's thrown it.

“Where the fuck is my partner?”

-

The door to Coulson's office slams open, and Black Widow stalks in vibrating with anger, and Melinda May is right behind her, just as upset.

Sam looks between the two women, and unsubtly puts Steve in between himself and them.

“Where's Barton?”

Coulson tilts his head. “We've just been discussing that. He's a ghost at the moment.”

“Phil, I'm finding it very hard not to hurt you right now.”

“I appreciate your self-control. We will find your partner, Agent Romanov. I'm certain he's deep undercover somewhere. Records are somewhat...disorganized.”

Natasha breaks an empty chair in half. “Not on my behalf, _eblan_. I can't believe you did that to  HIM.”

Coulson is mildly puzzled. “Explain.”

Natasha goes very still once more. “Phil, what do you remember of the week before the Battle of New York?”

Coulson's eyes get shadowed. “Due to the procedure that brought me back, I'm missing chunks of time. That's one of them.”

Agent Romanov sits down hard. “S _ukin_ _ _syn__ _.”_

_ Coulson furrows a brow and leans forward to study her. Steve shifts, reaching out to set a hand on her shoulder. _

_ Natasha shrugs off Steve's hand, sits up straight, the cold mask of Black Widow descending. _

_“ Director Coulson, please look up a file for me.” She rattles off a string of numbers and letters. He types them in._

_ Both his brows arch, and he looks hard at Widow. “Is this authentic?” _

_“ I was there. And so was Fury.”_

_“ Phil?” Melinda's voice is soft. He turns the computer so that she can see the document highlighted on it._

_ It's a wedding license for Phil Coulson...and Clint Barton. _

-

“I thought there was a cellist.” Steve settles into the barstool next to Romanov.

Coulson had thrown them all out of his office. They'd followed May here.

Sam is mixing drinks behind the bar.

“It was an LMD for a mission cover. We used to tease him about it.”

Melinda shakes her head. “No, we met her. There was an actual woman. She was being stalked by Blackout.”

“God fucking damn it, Nick. What the hell were you playing at?” Natasha is playing with yet another knife. Sam is giving her a wide berth.

“I think we need Tony.” Rogers takes his drink from Sam with a nod.

The silence is deafening.

“JARVIS can find Clint.” He looks at Natasha, eyes sympathetic.

She mutters under her breath then looks at Melinda. “May, you got someone here who can send a coded message?”

“As a matter of fact, we do.”

-

“Oh my god, Iron Man, _really_? I mean I've sort of always wanted to meet him, because whoa smart, but also because it's the only place I haven't been able to hack into, and I would love to find out his encryption algorithms! And really, we've _got_ to talk about freedom of information, and by the way love the job you did with SHIELD's files, I've been going through it, like nonstop since the whole HYDRA thing went down.”

Natasha narrows her eyes.

Melinda rests a hand on her arm for a calculated three seconds before pulling it back. “She grows on you.”

-

“Um, boss?”

“Not now, Koenig.”

“Boss, I-”

He's interrupted by a blast of Black Sabbath coming through every speaker in the entire base.

Coulson lets his forehead hit his desk.

-

Everyone but Steve jumps when the music starts blaring. He simply sets his drink down, and walks out of the room calmly.

They follow him after a minute to the hangar door. Coulson meets them there.

“Which one of you called Stark in?”

May's look is faintly amused. “Skye.”

Coulson clenches his jaw a moment, then turns to stand to Captain America's left.

The door slowly opens to reveal Tony in a fashionably rumpled suit with a drink in his hand. Coulson doesn't even ask anymore.

“You're late.” Steve's hands are on his hips.

Natasha side eyes Cap at the challenge, but he's focused intently on Tony. Who walks right up to him, stands toe to toe and everyone tenses for a fight.

Coulson's got his hand in his coat pocket on a taser.

Tony stands that way, lifts his chin and looks up into Steve eyes defiantly. “What're you going to do about it?”

There's a silent few seconds of tension, then Steve reaches out and picks up Tony, who wraps his legs around Steve's waist and they're kissing. At length.

“So that's how it is,” whispers Sam softly.

Natasha starts taking pictures.

“Well, that's not something you see every day.” Skye is halted in the doorway with a laptop in either hand, eyes wide as saucers.

Coulson sighs. “Gentlemen, if you are quite done, we have a situation.”

Tony rests his forehead against Steve's after they finally part with eyes closed a moment, then nods as Steve wordlessly puts him down.

“Right, I've got 3 hours before I'll be missed in DC. Let's find Hawkeye.”

He strides over and collects Skye and the two of them immediately start talking in things that Coulson doesn't understand.

“I'm not sure the two of them should ever have been introduced.”

He turns to see Natasha eying Cap, and the big man blushing fiercely. “I'm not talking about it,” he says firmly.

Coulson arches a brow. He gives Steve a week.

Her gaze turns on him next and there's something unreadable in her eyes. “Your office.”

-

Coulson is looking at photos of his wedding and he can't remember a thing. About any sort of relationship with Clint at all.

“I don't understand.”

“I do.” Natasha looks up from where she's been scribbling notes. “Those holes in your memory, Phil. They all correspond to missions with just you and Clint, except for the wedding and a weekend that you were both listed as AWOL.” She chuckles softly. “I wouldn't mind knowing the story behind that.”

“Me either.” Phil can't decide if he's furious, nauseous, or just tired.

Natasha continues. “Fury has always wanted you to take over SHIELD.” She flicks her gaze up at him. “I think Clint was in the way.”

-

It takes four hours, and Tony is ignoring increasingly angry texts from Pepper while he and JARVIS and Skye technobabble, when they find Clint.

“It's not good, Agent.”

“Where?” Coulson is already shrugging into his suitcoat.

“Psych Ward at the Fridge.”

“May, wheels up in five.”

-

He hears voices through the fog in his brain.

They're waking him up. That's never good.

He thinks he hears Phil's voice, but that's even crazier than hearing Loki's. Phil is dead.

He tells the voices so. Or tries to. It comes out all mushy.

“Clint, can you hear me?” That one sounds like Natasha, but she's dead too.

Maybe he's dead.

“Am I dead?” His voice is hoarse and raspy. “Stop haunting me. Please let me die.”

He blinks his eyes but he can't see anything, there's something covering them. He vaguely remembers trying to claw his eyes out. After seeing their bodies. Because he couldn't stop seeing every single fucking thing in stark, vivid detail.

His mind starts to clear.

Psych ward. Suicide. Self-harm.

Yes. Now, he remembers everything.

He wishes he didn't.

-

Clint is in a straight jacket with bandages over his eyes. He's secured to the bed and there's a continuous IV drip.

Simmons studies it a minute. “Yes, Agent Coulson. He's in a medically induced coma.”

She flips through a chart. “This says that he's suicidal, will self-harm if conscious... “ She looks up, swallowing hard. “It has a list of self-inflicted injuries.” She flips again. “Three pages long.”

Coulson's eyes are granite. “Wake him up, Simmons.”

She makes an adjustment, while Natasha paces.

Simmons steps back. “Should be awake within thirty minutes, sir.”

Natasha is going wall to wall, eyes laser focused on Clint. “Can we take that crap off of him?”

Coulson glances to Simmons who looks sympathetic. “It might be best to acclimate him to being awake first.”

He looks to Natasha, who sets her jaw and keeps pacing. “I don't like it. He shouldn't be all tied up like that.”

Coulson watches Clint, and tries very hard to remember loving him.

After a few minutes more, Barton makes some sort of noise and Natasha leans close. “Clint, can you hear me?”

“Am I dead? Stop haunting me. Please let me die.”

Coulson closes his eyes as he hears the echoes of his own words. The room is painfully silent a long moment, then Romanov laughs harshly.

“Clint, you idiot.” There's a suspicious watery glitter in Natasha's eyes. “You're not dead and we're not either.”

Barton licks his lips. “We?” His voice is flat and apathetic.

Phil clears his throat. “The rumors of my death-” He has to stop, closes his eyes tight, swallows hard over the lump in his throat.

Clint snorts. “You've always wanted to use that line.”

Coulson huffs a laugh.

Barton squirms the tiniest bit. “So, either I've gone full on crazy or someone has some serious splaining to do.”

Natasha reaches for the buckles, then glances at Simmons, who gives her a nod.

“Barton! Getting into bondage I see.” Tony and Steve are at the door.

Clint freezes a second, then shakes his bandaged head. “Okay, I've never hallucinated Stark before.”

“Well, I am _hurt_ by that, Barton. I would be an _excellent_ imaginary friend. I'm extremely entertaining and hilarious, I'll have you know.”

“Not the time, Tony.”

“Oh, hey, Cap's here.” Clint's sitting up now, flexing his arms as Romanov pulls the device off over his head. “Welcome to the party.”

“He's dragging Tony down the hallway at the moment.” Natasha is amused.

Coulson furrows a brow as he watches Clint move his arm, and there's something ticking at the back of his mind, and he goes chasing after it.

-

Clint hears a muffled curse, and he turns his head back to where the imaginary Coulson was standing. “What was that?”

Natasha's voice is in his ear. “Coulson just fainted. Steve caught him. Simmons is checking his vitals.”

“Who is Simmons? How am I hallucinating people I don't know? Is this a thing that happens?”

“Clint.” Her hands on on his cheeks, he can _feel_ them, and that's never happened and Clint has a really bad feeling that this isn't the pleasant dream he thought it was going to be.

He's suddenly very afraid.

“Tasha. He's really not dead?”

She doesn't answer, just starts unwinding the bandage, apologizing when it tugs at the wounds.

He can feel her put her hands over his eyes. “Open,” she says softly and he does, blinking back tears, because even with her hands, it's very bright.

As soon as Clint's adjusted, he opens his eyes to see a very blurry Natasha in front of him. And if this is a hallucination, it's the most real one that's ever existed, because the first thing she does is pinch his upper arm.

“Ouch. What was that for?”

“Don't you fucking _ever_ try to kill yourself. I don't care if you're the last person on earth. You keep living. You hear me, Barton?” Her voice wavers.

Clint reaches out and pulls her close, lets her head settle on his shoulder a moment, but only a moment because they're not the kind of people who indulge in that sort of thing.

Natasha pulls back and Clint turns his head to see Phil pushing himself up from the floor.

“Didn't think my new scars were that bad.”

Coulson is staring at him like he's never seen him before.

“Phil?”

Natasha squeezes Clint's shoulder. “Fury wiped his memories of you.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. I'm going to shoot him in his fucking face.”

“Too late. He's vanished.” Coulson steps closer, studying Clint's face.

Natasha joins Simmons in the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her.

-

“I actually just remembered something.” Coulson's voice is mild as always, but there's something unusual in his eyes.

Clint doesn't dare hope, just tilts his head sideways in unspoken question.

“Honolulu.”

Clint can't help but grin. “That's a pretty damned good memory to have come back.”

“It was the way you moved, your hands or arm or something.”

“I was very hands-on that night.”

Coulson flushes just the tiniest bit, and sits down next to Clint on the bed.

“Married.”

“Hey, it was your idea not mine. I was happy living in sin. You said and I quote, 'There'll be less paperwork this way'.”

“That does sound like me.” He's quiet a moment. “You're taking this well.”

“I'm high.”

“Clint.” He starts and then stops, not really sure what he wants to say.

“I like it when you call me Big Daddy.”

Coulson doesn't bat an eye, doesn't outwardly react to Clint's ridiculousness, but he relaxes subtly. “Not going to happen.”

“Why did I marry you again?”

“I can't even imagine.” He takes a deep breath. “We're going to figure this thing out.”

Clint's shoulder bumps his gently. “Of course we are.”

Natasha knocks on the door and then opens it. “Tony just exploded something in the lab.”

Clint grins, and Phil can't help but smile back. He helps Clint get put together and then they go out, hand in hand, to join the rest of their team.

**Author's Note:**

> > Inspiration: My Immortal by Evanescence
>> 
>> Please let me know if I need to tag anything.  
>> 
>> Come say hi on [Tumblr](goddessofcruelty.tumblr.com)!
> 
> You **DO NOT** have my permission to show my works to anyone involved with the show.
> 
> You **DO NOT** have my permission to link to my works on Goodreads.


End file.
